Young Musicians Foundation Selects Roger Kalia as New Music Director & Conductor

LOS ANGELES, May 30, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Roger Kalia, age 27, has been selected as the new music director and conductor of the Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) Debut Orchestra for the next three years. Kalia was selected from a competitive pool of over twenty international candidates. He will receive a YMF Conducting Grant and the opportunity to plan, rehearse, and conduct a series of approximately six concerts per season, including symphonic, chamber orchestra, family and fundraising performances.

The three-year post is one of the most prestigious training positions available to young conductors. The music director & conductor reports to the YMF executive director and YMF artistic administrator and creates each season’s programming in collaboration with the artistic administrator and music advisory board.

Other responsibilities include serving on the yearly orchestra audition panel, conducting the Debut Orchestra season, directing up to three Music 360 deg outreach performances around Los Angeles County, and representing YMF at numerous social and artistic events. This is one of the few programs available where the most talented young conductors in the world are paired with one of the premier training orchestras in the nation and given the opportunity to plan, rehearse, and conduct a full orchestra season.

The program, created in 1955, boasts many accomplished alumni who have gone on to successful conducting careers, including: Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Lucas Richman, Jung-Ho Pak, Daniel Hege, and many more.

Kalia is in his final year as a Doctoral Conducting Fellow and Associate Instructor at Indiana University, studying with David Effron and Arthur Fagen. He recently concluded his tenure as assistant conductor of the IU Opera Theater. He earned his MM at the University of Houston where he was the recipient of the Schissler Conducting Fellowship.

A New York native, Roger graduated with a BM in Music Education in 2007 from the State University of New York in Potsdam, studying trumpet with John Ellis. He was a conducting fellow at the 2010 Aspen Music Festival, and has attended master classes with David Zinman, Franz Welser-Most, Robert Spano, Marin Alsop, Hugh Wolff, Larry Rachleff and Mei-Ann Chen.

Roger recently conducted the Memphis Symphony Orchestra to critical acclaim after winning second prize in their inaugural conducting competition. Roger is in his second season as music director of the Columbus (IN) Symphony Orchestra, and is the newly appointed music director of the Lake George Music Festival. A guest cover conductor with the Charlotte Symphony, he has also conducted the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra as part of the Conductors Guild Workshop at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music.

YMF currently administers seven programs for youth: the Music Director and Conductor-in-Residence, Debut Orchestra, Debut Concerto Competition, Chamber Music Series, Music 360 deg outreach concerts, Harp in Our Public Schools Project, and Music Mentors Program. Together, these programs comprise the most comprehensive pre-professional training curriculum available in Southern California for young classical music artists.